Fig. 4

Effect of the TrkB receptor blocker K252a on fibroblast cell growth. a K252a induced a decrease in cell growth in comparison to cell line treated with BDNF and no treated cells after 120 h (C). The number of viable cells present in a cell suspension was obtained by tryplan-blue staining. Histogram at the bottom represents the number of fibroblast cell viability obtained in the Trypan blue exclusion test after 24 h of treatment with indirubin. The asterisk indicates significant difference compared to the BDNF treated cell and control group (*p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test). Each bar represents the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. b Migration ability of fibroblast cell lines determined by wound healing assay. Cell lines treated with BDNF have a higher motility into the wounded area, in comparison those treated with TrkB inhibitor K252a (black rectangles). Results were statistically evaluated by Students t test (*p < 0.05 K252a treated cells vs controls, **p < 0.01 BDNF treated cells vs controls). The amount of migrated cells was measured by ImageJ software (version 1.32j)